Where can you find the very nature of your self? Begin by finding what is supporting you. Where does the path of understanding begin and end? It begins by knowing there is little to achieve through hard work and dedication to a few ideas. To fully grasp an understanding of allegiance to the self you must be one with the river of life. If you have your head down, working hard swimming laps back and forth across the river, you are chopping wood. You may feel your self getting stronger, doing these laps and chopping the wood. You may feel you’re are doing mental push-ups to be more prepared, but in this practice doing will leave you right where you began. And intelligence has nothing to do with having a complete understanding of self. The path to understanding begins with letting go, letting your self be with the river instead of just in it. The path ends with older wiser you.

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If you were to have a meditative practice remember that how you begin is important. Get comfortable, drop into the moment, and lay aside whatever is weighing you down. What is equally important is the way you end the practice. Some days are busier than others, some days the mind is busier than others. Some times it can be hard to get loose depending on the accounts of your day. Even if that is the case, at the very end of the practice just a hand full of breaths can be sufficient for you to gain much benefit from the practice. It will shift your allegiance, it will reorient you to some degree. The same thing holds true for larger cycles. You might see this year as a cycle as well. Find a natural pause place where you can let your breathing reorient your self. Just a few well placed breaths, thoughtfully immersed in nothing else but your breath, can give you a years worth of calm.

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There is a pause between breaths. There is a pause between thoughts. The pause is part of the rhythm, part of a cycle. We are all immersed in and a part of a large rhythm. The days get shorter like an exhale going out until the bottom of the exhale, the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. As you’re feeling the rhythm of breathing there’s a natural pause place at the bottom of the breath; there is a natural pause place at this time of the year as well – a pause before the next cycle begins. Immerse your self into this pause to feel miracles and a shift of perception. But this shift can only come with your willingness to be completely in the pause.

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Give your self permission to simply begin to immerse your self more in the feeling of pause. This is attuning your self to the feeling. It is the most natural thing you can do because it’s what you are designed for. This is yogaing. This is the primary practice. Let this be your primary practice and let everything else be secondary at best. The confusion arises when you make something else more important than the yogaing and the tuning in. Stay tuned into the answers and problems don’t appear. When you bring your attention to perceived problems that is what you are going to experience.

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If any day this week has been crazy and hectic, you need this. It’s like an ice cold drink on a scorching summer day. Breathe. Do it slow. Do it long. Do it right and it will cool everything to the perfect temperature. Splish, splash, you just took a bath in Free Range Meditation.

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